Surrounded by other singers arranged in a square, Judy Hauff rocks her feet heel to toe, rhythmically slashes the air with her arm and sings “Fa la sol la sol.” This is “shape note” music, an a ...

Going to church on a Sunday is a usual occurance for a majority of people, regardless, if they follow the good book, line for line or just practice religion on a casual basis. Church does involve a ...

Shoal Creek Church Talladega National Forest, Ala. Sept. 1, 2008 It’s the day after the Young People’s Sacred Harp Singing Convention near Bremen, Ga., an event that helps balance the age ratio. There ...

BREMEN, Ga. — “The Sacred Harp” is a pre-Civil War compilation of sacred songs that uses music notes shaped like triangles, ovals, squares and diamonds, and it is getting an update. Sung in four-part ...

The sound defies mere singing, pulsing though the church sanctuary with sufficient force to put hell on alert. For three days this month singers from the United States, Canada and Britain gathered to ...

Atlanta - More than 700 singers convened in Atlanta this month to celebrate the latest edition of the songbook at the heart of one of the country's oldest Christian music traditions. The Sacred Harp, ...

OZARK — Henry Japheth Jackson moves his wheelchair over to a small chalkboard set up in his Ozark living room. With a metal pointer, the 93-year-old explains the musical notes drawn over major and ...

BREMAN, Ga. (AP) — Singers at Holly Springs Primitive Baptist Church in West Georgia treat their red hymnals like extensions of themselves, never straying far from their copies of “The Sacred Harp” ...

In 2005 our family made a pilgrimage from our home in Indiana to two all-day Sacred Harp singings in rural Alabama churches. Seventeen-year-old Ben Jacobs and his mom went along. Ben had sung ...